| Increasing wind power generation has lead to an increase in concern over the uncertainty and variability of wind generation as it interacts with the powers system. This study compares previous efforts to study wind integration and presents a new methodology to enhance evaluation of wind power integration and quantify wind forecast impacts. The methodology involves a three step production cost model simulation to simulate day ahead, hour ahead, and real time power systems operations using hourly, fifteen minute, and five minute time steps. A full nodal network model is used in all simulations to ensure consistency between the different steps of the simulations. Wind generation forecast are analyzed and modeled in the simulations, to determine their effect on operations. The methodology is used to analyze several case studies of the California power system. The case studies model California using additional wind generation to meet a 20% renewable energy requirement. The model simulates the four major wind regions in California. The Tehachapi wind region is modeled with 4.7 GW of additional wind generation capacity, for a total of 7.6 GW wind capacity in the system. The results show that wind forecasts can have significant impacts on the physical and financial aspects of the power systems. The wind forecast errors impact the unit commitments, generator dispatches, and load following ability. Forecast errors cause day ahead thermal generation commitments to vary by 1.2 GW of capacity. The generator revenue and load costs see impacts of 3% and 1%, respectively, for most common forecast errors. |
